Career: Actor. Made his stage debut at the age of fifteen months. Appeared in commercials and print advertisements. Singer at various venues. Participant and speaker at various events, parades, and festivals, including the Judy Garland Festival, Grand Rapids, MN, 1999 and 2000. Mickey Rooney Tabas Hotel, Downingtown, PA, co-owner. Some sources state that Rooney was involved with a health food company, an advertising firm, and the World Poker Tour Invitational. Military service: U.S. Army, served during World War II.

Awards, Honors: Juvenile Academy Award (with Deanna Durbin), 1938; Academy Award nomination, best actor in a leading role, 1939, for Babes in Arms; Academy Award nomination, best actor in a leading role, 1943, for The Human Comedy; Academy Award nomination, best actor in a supporting role, 1956, for The Bold and the Brave; Golden Laurel Award nomination, top male action star, Laurel awards, Producers Guild of America, 1958, for Baby Face Nelson; Emmy Award nomination, best single performance by a lead or supporting actor, 1958, for "The Comedian," Playhouse 90; Emmy Award nomination, best single performance by an actor, 1959, for "Eddie," Alcoa Theatre; Golden Laurel Award nomination, top male supporting performance, 1963, for Requiem for a Heavyweight; Golden Globe Award, best male television star, 1964; Academy Award nomination, best actor in a supporting role, 1979, for The Black Stallion; Special Theatre World Award, Antoinette Perry Award nomination, and Drama Desk Award nomination, both best actor in a musical, all 1980, for Sugar Babies; Emmy Award, outstanding lead actor in a limited series or special, and Golden Globe Award, best performance by an actor in a miniseries or motion picture made for television, both 1982, for Bill; honorary Academy Award, 1982; Emmy Award nomination, outstanding lead actor in a limited series or special, 1984, for Bill: On His Own; Former Child Star Lifetime Achievement Award, Young Artist awards, Young Artist Foundation, 1991; Gemini Award nomination, best performance by an actor in a continuing leading dramatic role, Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television, 1992, for The Black Stallion; Francois Truffaut Award, Giffoni Film Festival, 1996; Hollywood Film Legend Award, Hollywood Christmas Parade, 2000; named mayor for life, Girls and Boys Town alumni, 2003; John Payne Lifetime Achievement Award, Blue Ridge Southwest Virginia Vision Film Festival, 2004; special award for service during World War II, National D-Day Memorial, 2004; received multiple on the Hollywood Walk of Fame; recipient of other awards and honors.

CREDITS

Film Appearances:

Midget, Not to be Trusted, 1926.

(Uncredited) Orchids and Ermine, 1927.

(As Mickey McGuire) Boy, Sin's Pay Day, Mayfair, 1932.

(As Mickey McGuire) Buddy Whipple, High Speed, Columbia, 1932.

King Charles V, My Pal the King, Universal, 1932.

(Uncredited) Mickey Fitzpatrick, The Beast of the City, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1932.

Midge, Fast Companions (also known as Caliente and The Information Kid), Universal, 1932.

Television Appearances; Movies:

Nelson Stool, Evil Roy Slade, NBC, 1971.

Old Bailey, "Donovan's Kid," Disney's Wonderful World (also known as Disneyland, The Disney Sunday Movie, The Magical World of Disney, Walt Disney, Walt Disney Presents, Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color, and The Wonderful World of Disney), NBC, 1979.

The Maker, My Kidnapper, My Love (also known as Dark Side of Love), NBC, 1980.

Appeared as Harry Burton, Jack's Place, ABC; appeared as himself in "Mickey Rooney," an episode of Celebrity Golf (also known as The Golf Channel Presents "Celebrity Golf with Sam Snead"), NBC, later broadcast on The Golf Channel; appeared in other programs, including Hollywood Squares and various news telecasts.

Television Appearances; Pilots:

The Mickey Rooney Show, ABC, 1964.

Superhero, Return of the Original Yellow Tornado, 1967.

Ready and Willing, NBC, 1967, later broadcast on Three in One, CBS, 1973.

Also appeared in other productions, including Gifts from the Attic (musical), Minneapolis, MN; and in W.C.

Major Tours:

George M! (musical), U.S. cities, c. 1970.

Mickey, Sugar Babies (musical revue), U.S. cities, 1983–87.

Two for the Show, U.S. cities, 1989.

The Sunshine Boys, U.S. cities, 1990.

The Mind with the Naughty Man, Canadian cities, 1994.

The Wizard, Professor Marvel, and other roles, The Wizard of Oz (musical), U.S. and Canadian cities, 1997–99.

Let's Put On a Show! (musical revue; also known as Mickey Rooney: Let's Put On a Show!; some sources cite original title as The One Man, One Wife Show), various international cities, beginning c. 1998.

Toured in vaudeville as Joe Yule, Jr., and later as Mickey Rooney with his family; toured in vaudeville with Sid Gold, 1932.

Television Music; Specials:

Writings for the Stage:

(With Donald O'Connor) Two for the Show, tour of U.S. cities, 1989.

(With Jan Chamberlain Rooney) Let's Put On a Show! (musical revue; also known as Mickey Rooney: Let's Put On a Show!; some sources cite original title as The One Man, One Wife Show), tour of various international cities, beginning c. 1998.

Songs:

Wrote songs, including "Oceans Apart," a song performed by Judy Garland.

Nonfiction; Autobiographies:

I.E.,: An Autography, Putnam, 1965.

Me and You, 1990.

Life Is Too Short, Villard Books, 1991.

Contributor to periodicals, including Newsweek.

Novels:

The Search for Sonny Skies, Carol Publishing, 1994.

OTHER SOURCES

Books:

International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, Volume 3: Actors and Actresses, fourth edition, St. James Press, 2000.

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Mickey Rooney has done everything there is to do in show business—vaudeville, radio, legitimate theater, television, and film—all with equal success and, it might be said, equal failure. His is a career that reached the heights and plunged to the depths, but through it all Rooney kept on working and growing, the mark of a professional. His recent successes include nominations for the Tony (Sugar Babies), the supporting actor Oscar (Black Stallion, the inspiration for a later television series in which he also appeared), and an Emmy (Bill). The "comeback" such recognition indicates represents one of the most spectacular returns to the limelight in Hollywood history.

Rooney was born into a show business family. At the age of two, he joined his parents in their vaudeville act, and by the age of five was appearing in a series of filmed shorts under the name of Mickey McGuire. Throughout the late 1920s and early 1930s, he made more than 40 appearances in films. By the mid-1930s he was called Mickey Rooney and was under contract to MGM as a successful child star. In 1937 he was featured in a minor film called A Family Affair, which introduced the family of Judge Hardy (played in that original movie by Lionel Barrymore). Rooney's appearance as the Judge's son, Andy Hardy, was to turn into a box-office bonanza as he became one of Hollywood's best-loved characters. Hardy became the idealized image of the all-American teenager, real enough to get himself into trouble, but strong enough to find his way out of it (though not without the wise counsel of his beloved father, played in the later Hardy films by Lewis Stone). In 1938 Rooney was awarded a special honorary Oscar for "bringing to the screen the spirit and personification of youth" and for "setting a high standard of ability and achievement" as Andy Hardy. In 1939, 1940, and 1941 Rooney was among the top box-office stars in the United States, a success attributable not only to the Hardy series, but also to his pairings with co-stars as diverse as Wallace Beery and Judy Garland. In these famous MGM films, Rooney sang, danced, clowned, played various musical instruments, emoted, and generally did everything with seeming ease and an abundance of raw talent. He was nominated for Oscars in 1939 and 1943. He was on top of the world at the age of 20, full of youth and energy, and with an apparently unlimited career ahead of him. By the end of the 1940s, however, and by his own admission, he was an unwanted commodity. "In 1938," he said, "I starred in eight pictures. In 1948 and 1949 together, I starred in only three."

During the 1950s, Rooney kept his career going by appearing in nightclubs and on television, and by forming an independent film production company to present himself as the star of a series of movies, none of which was really successful. He also tried his hand at dramatic roles, many of which were much against type. Rooney received another Oscar nomination for his intense performance as a doomed G.I. during the invasion of Italy in the iconoclastic war film The Bold and the Brave; drew excellent notices for his supporting role in Requiem for a Heavyweight, the film version of Rod Serling's celebrated television drama; and won a Best Actor César award (the French equivalent of the Oscar) for his Cagneyesque performance as the psychopathic title character of Don Siegel's much underrated gangster film Baby Face Nelson. Despite these accomplishments, his career faltered. Bankruptcy in 1962, various emotional problems, and seven divorces (which made him the subject of many jokes) all contributed to a difficult period in which Rooney was considered finished in show business. He developed himself further as a character actor, however, and began to find acclaim in television. He published an autobiography, pursued various business ventures, and taught acting, continuing to work professionally when and where he could. In the early 1980s he returned to Broadway in the long-running hit musical, Sugar Babies, and found himself once more back on top. When the Motion Picture Academy gave him a second honorary Oscar at its 1982 ceremony, his long career as the boy who could do anything and everything, but who had to grow up, was placed in perspective.

Rooney's abundant talent, like his film image, might seem like a metaphor for America: a seemingly endless supply of natural resources that could never dry up, but which, it turned out, could be ruined by excessive use and abuse, by arrogance or power, and which had to be carefully tended to be returned to full capacity. From child star to character actor, from movie shorts to television specials, and from films to Broadway, Rooney ultimately did prove he could do it all, do it well, and keep on doing it. His is a unique career, both for its versatility and its longevity.

—Jeanine Basinger, updated by
John McCarty

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